Personalized Learning

Preparing High School Students to Create their Futures

Edited by Joseph DiMartino, John Clarke Other Denise Wolk

Publication date:

17 December 2002

Length of book:

368 pages

Publisher

R&L Education

ISBN-13: 9780810845312

When it comes to learning, is smaller really better? There is a growing body of evidence to support the notion that smaller, more personalized schools are better for both students and teachers. Bringing together the combined knowledge and experience of more than two dozen teachers, administrators, and researchers, this book provides a roadmap for educators embarking on the journey to create a more personalized environment for high school students. Features include: _ Highlights of current initiatives aimed at personalizing learning for high school students. _ Description of Personal Learning Plans that tie the learning to the talents and aspirations of the student. _ Exploration of classroom teaching that allows individuals to gain knowledge while pursuing their own hopes. _ Description of high school designs that engage students in democratic processes and systemic changes that must accompany and support personalized learning for all students. Written by practitioners with practical interest in moving high schools toward personalization, this book will excite others to initiate reforms that enable ALL young adult learners to meet common standards while designing and pursuing a unique pathway toward adult roles. That's what personal learning and this book are all about.

Part 1 Editor's Foreword
Part 2 Introduction: Honors Night
Part 3 Section 1: Personalized Learning Plans
Chapter 4 1 When Learning Matters: Using Learning Plans to Educate One Student at a Time
Chapter 5 Appendix to Chapter 1
Chapter 6 2 Assessing to Engage: Developing Personal Profiles for Each Student
Chapter 7 3 Personalization and Secondary School Renewal
Chapter 8 4 Personalized Learning and Personalized Teaching
Part 9 Section 2: Personalized High School Teaching
Chapter 10 5 The Path to Personalized Learning: A Teacher's Perspective
Chapter 11 6 Democracy and Equity in the Classroom: A Team Design
Chapter 12 7 Service at the Heart of Personalized Learning: Developing Relationships between Self and Other
Chapter 13 8 Community-Connected Learning: Personalization as a Vehicle for Reform
Chapter 14 9 Preparing Teachers for Personalized Student Learning through Teacher Training
Part 15 Section 3: Designing Schools That Engage Each Student
Chapter 16 10 Making Learning Personal: Educational Practices That Work
Chapter 17 11 Toward the Creation of a Personalized High School
Chapter 18 12 Putting Student Performance Data at the Center of School Reform: New Expectations for Student Achievement and School Accountability
Chapter 19 13 Using Breaking Ranks to Engage a School Community in Cooperative Reform
Part 20 Section 4: Adapting the Systems That Shape High School Learning
Chapter 21 14 High School Capacities for Systemic Change
Chapter 22 15 Making Personalization a State-Wide Priority: Maine's Promising Future's Movement
Chapter 23 16 Focused Thinking: Aiming School Accreditation toward Improved Learning
Chapter 24 17 Growing High School Reform: Change as Organic Adaption
Chapter 25 18 Conclusion: Gathering Momentum for High School Personalization
Part 26 About the Contributors

For those who seek exemplars and exposition of working, sustainable, systemic innovations, this book is an essential reference for personalization of learning in an organizational setting. For those who seek hope in a sometimes dim view of the future of public education, this book is a must read from cover to cover...If our vision of public education is to liberate the genius and goodness of children and their teachers, Personal Learning moves the work one giant step forward.